Open Democracy
May 24, 2002
Israel: the military in charge?
Tanya Reinhart
Is Israel ruled by politicians or generals? In an
extract from her forthcoming book, Israel/Palestine
- how to end the war of 1948 (Seven Stories), a
leading scholar and commentator illuminates the
perilous tensions, and chilling ideas, at work deep
within the Israeli security establishment.
==============
In understanding the current conflict and in
assessing the dangers ahead, the role of the army
in Israeli politics deserves special attention.
During the Oslo years, it seemed that the conflict
between two conceptions which characterised the
political world existed also in the army. Thus,
Amnon Shahak, who replaced Ehud Barak as chief of
staff, was known as a supporter of the Oslo
process. The same is true of Amy Ayalon, then head
of the Security Service (Shin Bet), who came out
openly with critical views of Israel's policies
after he retired, and is currently a leading voice
in the call for immediate withdrawal from the
occupied territories.
But gradually, such voices were silenced. A
dominant figure emerging during these years is
Major-General Moshe Ya'alon, who is also known for
his connections with the settlers. As head of the
military intelligence - Am'an - between 1995 and
1998, Ya'alon confronted the chief of staff, Amnon
Shahak, and has consolidated the anti-Oslo line
which now dominates the military intelligence view.
Contradicting the position of Ayalon and the
security services (who praised the security
cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian
authority), Ya'alon claimed in a cabinet meeting in
September 1997, and later, that "Arafat is giving a
green light to terror" (see Amira Lam and Avner
Hofstein, "Profile: The Deputy Chief of Staff, Maj.
Gen. Moshe (Bugi) Ya'alon", Yediot Aharonot Weekly
Supplement, 1 June, 2001).
During Barak's days in office, Ya'alon became one
of his closest confidants in the restricted
military team which Barak assembled (Amir Oren,
Ha'aretz, 17 November, 2000). He was appointed
deputy Chief of Staff at the outset of the
Palestinian uprising, and has recently been
appointed as the next chief of staff.
The rule of the army
The army was fully eager and ready, right at the
start of the uprising, not only with all military
means, but also with the political plans and
propaganda themes. Already in early November 2000,
Guy Bechor, a senior security analyst in Yediot
Aharonot wrote: "Day after day, we read in the
press assessments by IDF Intelligence about
Arafat's status as a partner, the utility or
futility of continuing talks with him, attacking or
holding back on an attack on the PA. It is doubtful
that the army has a mandate to deal in these kinds
of political issues but, in any case, the IDF
presents a clear thesis here: Arafat initiated the
wave of riots, he controls them absolutely, with
the push of a button he can stop them. Deputy Chief
of Staff Maj. Gen. Moshe Ya'alon even openly jeered
at anyone thinking otherwise" (Yediot Aharonot, 7
November, 2000).
The military and the political systems in Israel
have always been closely intertwined. According to
a US 'congressional source', "in Israel, unlike the
United States, the setting of national strategies
and priorities is a consensus issue, not carried
out by bodies headed by political appointees, but
by men in uniform... All previous Israeli
governments have given 'a tremendous amount of
attention' to suggestions by the military because
they represent the 'permanent government,' this
source said" (Richard Sale, Washington, UPI, 1
March, 2001).
Still, never had the army such a dominant role in
Israel's politics as it has since the period of
Barak and Sharon. It is often clear that the real
decisions are made by the military rather than the
political echelon. This is visible even externally -
in all television coverage of meetings of the
Israeli government or cabinet, one sees at least an
equal number of uniformed representatives of the
various branches of the army and the security
forces, as politicians. The army seniors brief the
press (and capture at least half of the news space
in Israeli media); they brief and shape the views
of foreign diplomats; go abroad on diplomatic
missions; outline political plans for the
government; and express their political views on
any occasion.
Guy Bechor continued, in the same article of 7
November 2000: "When the prime minister is also the
defense minister and there is no healthy dialogue
between them as there should be; when cabinet
meetings take place at the Defense Ministry; when
ministers say amen to almost any military whim, the
outcome can be disastrous... The press should play
a balancing civilian role but in its patriotic
attitude, it is usually a military choir... The
government and the decision-makers, the Knesset,
the press, the State Attorney's Office and the
other civil and economic institutions follow the
military piper from Hamelin. Not that there are
exceptions, but that is what they are -
exceptions... It should be hoped that the
militarization process that is taking over our
agenda be curbed, and that the army retreats to its
natural position. But before that, all the civil
institutions must take up their roles again: the
government as a molder and not a follower of
policy, the Knesset as a critical factor, the State
Attorney's Office charged with the civil
interpretation of the rule of law, and the media as
a factor that uses rational thought and the general
public in contributing its common sense".
No one, of course, took this advice, and the
military's rule in Israel only got further
established during Sharon's time in office. The
army, particularly chief of staff Mofaz, gets
occasionally into vocal and public clashes with the
political system, even with Sharon, whom, with all
his 'glorious' past, they consider a bit outdated.
One such big clash was in October 2001, when
Sharon, pressed by the US to go more slowly,
required that the army withdraws temporarily from
the Abu-Snina area in Hebron, which it entered
after the assassination of Israeli right wing
minister Rehavam Zeevi. But Mofaz refused because
"he knew we will get back there... according to the
comprehensive military plans" (Alex Fishman, Yediot
Aharonot, 19 October, 2001).
In the driving seat of power
It was reported that another source of conflict
between the army and the government has been the
army's insistence that Arafat should be
assassinated and not just removed from power.
(Peres disclosed this several times; for example,
"Peres accuses the army of a mud-slinging campaign
to undermine him and said that Maj-Gen Ya'alon
would like to physically eliminate Mr Arafat" (The
Daily Telegraph, London, 2 October, 2001).) This is
something that the US has not approved of, so
Sharon has not agreed, so far, to that part of the
plan to topple Arafat's rule.
Richard Sale, in the article quoted above, reported
that "what worries Washington policy makers is that
Mofaz last November [2000] led a rebellious party
of Israeli generals, who wanted 'harsher measures'
taken against the Palestinian insurgents, including
assassinating president of the Palestine Authority,
Yassar Arafat, according to US government
officials. One US congressional source described
the blow out as 'the most severe crisis of civilian
authority in the history of Israel.' This source
explained the conflict centered on 'the extent of
the government's ability to disregard the Israeli
defense establishment and the estimates of
intelligence chiefs in the pursuit of policy' ".
The army is the most stable, and most dangerous,
political factor in Israel. It will stay in power
even after Sharon falls. As Amir Oren put it, Mofaz
is wrongly perceived as "someone who prefers Likud
to Labor. In fact... he does not care who is the
prime minister and the defence minister, as long as
they don't last long in their office. In the last
six years, since October 1995, there were five
prime ministers and six defence ministers, but only
two chiefs of staff" (Ha'aretz, 19 October, 2001).
As the army is the driving force behind Israel's
politics, it is appropriate to wonder what they are
really after. What can they have in mind as a
replacement of the Oslo arrangements? The present
declared goal is to reinstitute Israel's military
rule in the territories. But as we saw, the Oslo
arrangements were conceived precisely because the
military occupation could no longer work. The
burden of policing the territories was much too
heavy on the army, the reserves and Israeli
society, and the IDF's success in preventing terror
was, in fact, much lower than that of the
Palestinian Authority in later years.
No matter how "successful" the present ethnic
cleansing is, as long as the occupation continues,
the Palestinian resistance will continue as well,
and as everyone knows, nothing can stop desperate
people from turning to terror. After the Lebanon
experience, and after the seven years of Oslo,
during which Israeli society got used to the idea
that the occupation comes for free, with the
Palestinian Authority taking care of the settlers'
security, it is hard to imagine that anyone
believes a pre-Oslo arrangement can be reinstalled
as a long term solution.
'Transfer': from the lunatic fringe to the centre
of debate
A serious danger that should not be ignored is that
these fanatical generals really mean it when they
speak about "the second half of 1948". Those
pushing for the destruction of the Oslo
infrastructure may believe that under the
appropriate conditions of regional escalation, it
would be possible to eventually execute the
transfer plan - mass evacuation of the Palestinian
residents, as happened in 1948 (Sharon's old vision
of Jordan as the Palestinian state).
Indeed, the transfer idea is plainly on the table
in Israeli political discourse. What was until a
short while ago the lunatic right-wing of the
Rehavam Zeevi school, is now becoming the political
center. Ha'aretz of 23 March, 2001 reports a
conference at the Herzliah center of about 300
"prominent personalities from the core of Israel's
political and defense establishment" - the center
of the center.
The conclusions of the forum were solemnly
presented to the president of Israel, and what they
suggest there is the transfer-solution: "It will be
necessary to find some place for resettlement
outside the State of Israel (perhaps to the east of
the Jordan) for the Palestinian population of the
territories". Israeli Palestinians would be
deprived of their citizenship by "transferring them
to Palestinian sovereignty." The state's resources
should be invested in "fostering quality" that is,
in the "strong population", and not in the "non-
Zionist population", which includes "Arabs, ultra-
orthodox Jews and foreign workers", whose natural
increase is a source of concern.
This danger may seem far-fetched. Unlike the daily
ethnic cleansing that Israel has been carrying out,
a full scale transfer, with masses of refugees, is
not simple to execute, even in today's setting of
'new world order'. The only way it could become
feasible is under the umbrella of an extensive
regional war.
Some evidence has accumulated, however, that Israel
has been preparing for such war, awaiting US
approval. Specifically many voices in the Arab
world have warned for quite a while that Israel is
preparing for war with Syria. Since 11 September
2001, Israeli military and diplomatic delegations
are openly lobbying in the US to extend the war to
targets on the Israeli agenda.
In a more recent conference of the Herzliah center,
Major General Uzi Dayan, one of the participants in
these delegations, "identified what he called the
appropriate targets for the next stage of the
global campaign: 'The Iran, Iraq and Syria
triangle, all veteran supporters of terror which
are developing weapons of mass destruction.' He
said that 'they must be confronted as soon as
possible, and that it is also understood in the US
that Hizbollah and Syria have good reason to worry
about the developments in this campaign'" (Aluf
Ben, Ha'aretz, 18 December 2001).
Israel's eagerness to open a new front has
apparently found US hawks with open ears,
particularly in the circles of Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz. The
Observer (London) reported already towards the end
of September that "the plans put [by Rumsfeld]
before the President during the past few days
involve expanding the war beyond Afghanistan to
include similar incursions by special operations
forces - followed by air strikes by the bombers
they would guide - into Iraq, Syria and the Beqaa
Valley area of Lebanon, where the Syrian-backed
Hizbollah (Party of God) fighters that harass
Israel are based" (Ed Vulliamy, 30 September,
2001).
Of course, so far these are just plans representing
one pole in US politics, but according to the
Israeli press, concrete pressure on Syria began in
December. "US officials have informed the Syrian
and Lebanese governments in recent days that they
must stop playing host to terror organizations.
According to information that has reached Israel's
security establishment, as the final stages in the
Afghanistan war effort draw near, the Americans
intend to step up pressure against the activity of
terror organizations in Syria and Lebanon. US
emissaries visited Damascus and Beirut last week,
and submitted their country's demands" (Amos Harel,
Ha'aretz, 24 December 2001).
Some analysts warned even long before 11 September
about the dangers of war in the Middle East - a
region loaded with non-conventional weapons. Israel
is led now by lunatic, megalomaniac generals, who
keep their plans secret even from the full forum of
the government. These are the generals authorised
also to unleash Israel's nuclear arsenal. This is
not a risk the world can take.
Ran Greenstein
Johannesburg, South Africa